On Fridays I try to spend a little time understanding Facebook and how it works to expand my reach and build my “brand” as an author and freelance writer.
Today as I was creating groups to make it easier to filter posts from friends, family and acquaintances, I noticed that at some point I apparently accepted a request to join an app called BranchOut. Not knowing what the heck it even is, I did a little Googling and found several articles including the one below.
Bottom line, it sounds like it is Facebook’s version of LinkedIn, though there are differences, as noted in the article. Now I am a huge fan of LinkedIn. It is largely due to the groups I’ve joined there that I have been able to participate in so many interviews and guest posts. So I’m thinking if BranchOut can do more of the same, I should participate more actively.
My main concern is how my participation will impact my Facebook friends, As I started building my BranchOut network, is it going to start pestering them to join also, increasing their spam posts and cause them to block me on their news feeds? I’m gonna risk that, I guess, but if you already have experience with this app, I would welcome any comments telling me what you think of BranchOut. And after I’ve played around with it for awhile, I’ll come back on here and tell you how my experiment went.
That being said, does BranchOut really compete with LinkedIn? In social media marketing, I teach my clients that everyone has their own preferred social network, and they use it in their own particular way. For that reason, while these communities don’t really compete with each other (unless you look at ad revenue competition from their owners), I believe BranchOut is a natural complement for those who want to use social media for professional networking:
via Why Branch Out on Facebook for Networking Instead of Linking In?.
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